Box Office: 'Finding Dory' Passes 'Captain America 3' To Become Top U.S. Hit Of 2016

Among older movies, Finding Dory once again led the pack. The Pixar/Walt Disney animated sequel earned $6.283 million (-53%) on its fourth Friday, an understandable drop against The Secret Life of Pets. With $408.5m domestic, it has passed Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War to become the biggest domestic hit of 2016. It will pass Toy Story 3 ($415m) today. We should expect a $20m weekend (-52%) for a $422.2m domestic total, putting it above every animated film save The Lion King ($422.7m) and Shrek 2 ($441m). Pixar and Illumination have a history of thriving alongside each other, so we'll see if that pattern holds.

The Legend of Tarzan took a slight (but understandable) tumble on its second Friday, earning $6.1 million (-57%) to bring its eight-day cume to $66.898m. We can expect a $20m second weekend (-48%) for an $80m ten-day total. It’s holding fine and may pass $100m by the end of next week. Once again, if not for that $180m budget, this would be cause for relative celebration. It's certainly doing a lot better than most of us expected. And if it goes nuts overseas, Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. and Village Roadshow may pop the champagne anyway, albeit with little guarantee that a sequel would break out.

The Purge: Election Year plunged 72% on its second Friday for a $4.014 million gross. Expect an $11.2m second weekend (-65%) for a new $57.5m cume. That, shockingly enough, on par with the leggier sequel (-73% second Friday, -65% second weekend), as opposed to the less-leggy original (-83% second weekend). Its ten-day cume puts it way ahead of the $51m ten-day cumes of both The Purge and The Purge: Election Year. So it’s possible that this Universal/Comcast Corp. release may yet reach $80m domestic on that $10m budget. I hesitate to ponder whether recent events have made the Blumhouse/Platinum Dunes film more or less appetizing to general moviegoers.

No celebrations are in order for Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, which dropped 66% on its second Friday for a $2.399 million gross and a $33.5m cume. We can expect a $7.9m (-58%) second weekend and a $39m ten-day total for the Walt Disney release. At this rate, we can expect a $50-$55m domestic total. As such, it will certainly be Spielberg’s eighth-lowest domestic grosser ever and his third lowest in terms of inflation. He'll be okay, but it's still a shame. Central Intelligence crossed the $100m mark on Thursday and earned another $2.425m (-36%) on its fourth Friday. The Dwayne Johnson/Kevin Hart action comedy should make around $7.72m (-38%) for a solid $108m 24-day cume.

20th Century Fox’s Independence Day: Resurgence continues to be the blockbuster that wasn’t, as it earned $2.175 million (-54%) on its third Friday, setting the state for a $7.185m (-57%) third weekend and a $90.9m domestic cume. It’ll pass $100m, but it may take over a week to do so, and it’s pretty much done after that. It’s doing a little better overseas (it’ll probably top $200m foreign this weekend if it hasn’t done so already), but there will be no Independence Day 3. Sony’s The Shallows had a decent post-July 4th hold, as the Blake Lively shark tale earned $1.525m (-49%) despite losing 556 screens. The $17m thriller should make around $4.3m (-49%) in 1,872 theaters for a new $45.5m cume.

The Conjuring 2 earned another $525,000 (-57%) on 1,052 screens as it winds down its domestic run. The $40 million horror sequel should make $1.55m (-60%) on its fifth weekend to end up with $99m. So yeah, it too will cross the $100m mark soon and then cash out soon after. But the narrative will be very different for the respective sequels. Now You See Me 2 earned $400k (-56%) on 864 screens for a likely $1.26m (-57%) weekend and $62m cume. The film is killing it in China, so it may be a hit in the end. But Now You See Me 3 may never come to be.

Free State of Jones dropped like a stone in weekend three, but then losing 1,517 screens can do that. The STX Entertainment drama earned $377k (-68%) for a likely $1.24m (-70%) third weekend on just 1,240 screens. That will give the Matthew McConaughey vehicle $19.1m. All hopes are now on Bad Moms, dropping on July 29th. Our Kind of Traitor earned around $189k (-36%) in its second Friday on 399 screens for a likely $657k weekend (-33%) and $2.17m cume. Swiss Army Man sank hard in weekend three, as the A24 comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse earned around $203k (-61%) on its third Friday. The film should make around $583k (-59%) for the weekend to bring its cume to $3m.

Warcraft earned $119,000 on its fifth Friday, which was a drop of just 16%. For what it’s worth, the video game adaptation is now playing in second-run theaters. Anyway, the film should make $412k (-19%) for a $46.5m domestic total as it winds down below $50m. X-Men: Apocalypse should make around $398k (-56%) to bring its cume to $154.487m. Barring a miracle, it will not match the $157m domestic total of the original X-Men back in 2000. Me Before You will earn $386k (-53%) on 318 screens for a new $54.772m cume while Captain America: Civil War will end its tenth weekend with $406.2m. It may not reach the $409m cume of Iron Man 3, for what that’s worth. Oh, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows crossed the $80m mark yesterday, for what that's worth.

I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for 28 years. I have extensively written about all of said subjects for the last ten years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing s...